


Second Sight

by Capricorn_Stellium



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Cyberverse
Genre: Blind Character, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-24
Updated: 2020-09-24
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:01:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26627968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Capricorn_Stellium/pseuds/Capricorn_Stellium
Summary: Hiding out in MacCadam’s bar while the others attempt to rescue more bots from the Quintesson’s illusory parade, Dead End checks in with Percy. It can’t be easy, running from giant flying tentacle monsters with no optics, no matter how well Perceptor seems to cope with relying on his alternative means of vision…
Relationships: Dead End/Perceptor (Transformers)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 52





	Second Sight

**Author's Note:**

> Wrote this fairly quickly at 4 AM after watching some more of Cyberverse S3. Enjoy!

MacCadam had left the bar for a moment to go check supplies; It seemed they’d been going through a significant amount of energon to keep their fuel tanks topped up, and it was worth keeping the taps fully stocked in case Hot Rod or Clobber got injured on their way back from their latest attempt to free any of the others from the parade illusion.

Which left Dead End alone with the somewhat stoic Perceptor, who seemed to be holding up well considering everything that was going on… But Dead End didn’t buy it. 

He thought about how poorly he’d be dealing with things if his optics had blown out. He wasn’t sure what had happened to cause it, but the damage on Perceptor’s face plate was significant, and had to be hurting. It was an odd feeling, to genuinely care about how an autobot was doing, but so far they’d been working well together (for the most part) and Dead End was willing to put aside his factional loyalty in the name of survival. 

Survival that might be jeopardised if Perceptor was taken out by something he couldn’t see. Sure. That’s what he was concerned about… Definitely not any other reason for wanting to offer some additional cover in the field. 

He ex-vented and got up to sit across from Perceptor, who had taken over a booth to spread out a few data pads he must have been keeping in his subspace this whole time. It all just looked like a bunch of random equations to Dead End. 

“…Hey, Perceptor?” 

Percy’s helm lifted, but instead of meeting Dead End’s optics, his faceplate remained somewhat tilted downward. It made sense; No need to make optic contact if your optics didn’t work. Although somehow, he got the feeling that even with functional optics, Perceptor was probably the type who got too involved in his work to get distracted easily, anyway. “Yes, Dead End?” His voice remained as strong as always. No tells there.

Dead End shifted a bit in his seat; Fidgeting was unlike him, but he wasn’t sure how to approach something like this. It was uncomfortable, somewhat. Decepticons didn’t really get close with each other. “Uh, I was just wondering… How are you managing with all this? I mean, I know, you’re you, and you seem to be doing okay with however else you’re able to see things, but this can’t be easy without your optics online. You know, dodging lasers and running around and… doing math, I guess. Does your faceplate hurt?” 

Perceptor leaned back in the booth a bit; If he were surprised by Dead End’s line of questioning, it wasn’t otherwise obvious. 

“I appreciate your inquiries; I disabled the sensory input from sections of my faceplate for the time being to minimise the physical discomfort, so it isn’t significantly distracting in that regard, although the numbness did take a moment to familiarise myself with initially. I am able to perceive in other ways, so I am able to identify and track most major threats, although I must admit to some difficulty with purely visual input which is more difficult for me to detect with my alternative modes of visual recognition.” 

It took Dead End a second to parse everything Percy was telling him; This mech spoke like a textbook. Not a bad thing, interesting, in fact. But unfamiliar.  
“Uh, so you’re okay with the bigger stuff, but the smaller stuff must be more difficult, gotcha… Like the text on data pads?” 

Perceptor took a second to reply. Dead End was slowly learning that this mech had to be one of the quickest wits around; If he was hesitating, that must be his tell. So he was struggling a bit, after all. 

He would have to fix that. It wouldn’t be good if their best thinker was limited in their ability to research, or whatever. 

“…Yes, it appears while although I was able to save and spare my notes from earlier, I am unable to access them in their entirety. I have uploaded what I can to my own processor to create a more accessible backup file, but I find it is somewhat difficult to adapt to a more servos-off method of calculation; Typically I write across several data pads at once, purely a personal preference, and I can still manage to see the data pads themselves, but as you can tell here, it’s difficult for me to work directly on them with a stylus for the time being.” 

Percy pushed one data pad towards Dead End; He looked a little more closely at it this time, and sure enough, there were some new equations written on it… But these ran off the side of the screen or overlapped with the earlier notes, making it hard to decipher. 

It seemed Percy really was struggling to pick up minor details, even though he could see larger objects with whatever nerd-magic he was using to make up for his damaged optics. He was reading the notes on the copy he’d made in his processor, but trying to add new notes was proving difficult. Having to coordinate internal and external file referencing at once had to be dizzyingly hard… Or maybe Percy really was just that good. It gave Dead End a helm ache just thinking about trying to do something like that himself. 

And sure, Perceptor could just add notes on the copy in his processor, but inventors and scientist types tended to like working with their servos, from all that Dead End had ever seen of that kind of bot. It seemed holding a physical copy helped somehow. But Percy couldn’t effectively manage it right now… Right when they needed him to be at his best. Or best possible under the circumstances, anyway. 

Typically a bot with an injury like this would be fixed up by a medic in relatively little time, but without any such care available, who knew how long it would be until Perceptor could get repairs done? They’d need to create a new workflow, compensate for the optical damage until it could be worked out. 

If it could be worked out, anyway. Dead End had heard of bots who had been injured and had to wait for treatment, or got pushed down on the waiting list in the triage process, and as a result a fairly common injury ended up being permanent due to self-repair nanites sicking the wrong things together, healing over wires that should have been spliced and reconnected instead… 

Even though Perceptor is an autobot, and he should be glad that one of their best scientists was now less effective purely out of factional spite, Dead End couldn’t help but feel slightly upset at the idea of Percy having minor difficulties like these forever. He’d been a good team mate so far. Stoic, clever. Good traits in a decepticon, too. 

He had to offer. They were in a bad situation, the Quintessons were close to winning for good. Not a time to be petty. 

“Listen, I’m no mathematician, but I can write down whatever you tell me on your data pad here so you don’t have to try to figure it all out in your helm. Would that be helpful?” 

A rare, small smile crossed Percy’s faceplate. It took Dead End by surprise. “That would be very helpful, Dead End. Thank you for your offer of assistance.” 

Before they got started on that though, he wanted to make his offer. 

“I came over here to offer to help you out, y’know. In the field, too, if you need it. I mean, I know you can see some other way, but it’s pretty clear that it’s not a one hundred percent fix. Whatever you can’t work around, if we’re going to be a team, then in the interest of survival, I don’t want you to get taken out by something that slips past you. Not that I think the likelihood of that is very high, but, still.” 

There was a brief moment of silence as Perceptor seemed to be considering his offer; All it did was spike Dead End’s anxiety, which wasn’t a feeling he’d ever liked. 

“Hey, if you don’t—“ 

Perceptor interrupted him. “Thank you, again. I believe I will take you up on that. It’s a good idea to strengthen team relations at this time, particularly while we are under so much duress. And while I am able to use some degree of alternative visual input, it isn’t a perfect solution.” 

Perceptor bridged his hands together under his chin as his helm dipped even lower, resting his elbows on the booth table; A posture Dead End hadn’t seen before from the typically secure and confident bot.

“It has been difficult to switch to full time reliance on my secondary visual-sensory mode. I was relatively lucky in that my injury occurred slightly before things became quite so serious, as it gave me some additional time to adapt. But my secondary sight was not intended to become a primary mode of input. I don’t like to rely on it this heavily as there is an increased potential for damage; Overuse can result in fuse blow-outs and circuit damage that can be hard to reset or repair without assistance, and I doubt Hot Rod paid any attention to Ratchet’s first aid courses.” 

Dead End had a small moment of epiphany. 

“Wait, so you don’t have it engaged all the time… And when you don’t have it engaged, you don’t have the same degree of vision…” Suddenly, a lot of things made sense. He had figured Perceptor hadn’t been exploring MacCadam’s as extensively as the others had done purely because he was focused on whatever was on the data pads, but maybe it was more because he wasn’t able to see well enough to get around in the relatively dark bar? It was full of small obstacles like chairs and barstools, oddly placed fixtures, and all kinds of hard to navigate stuff even for bots with perfectly functional optics. 

Percy had been coming in and going for a seat straight away, every time they’d managed to return from another run-in with the Quintessons. It seemed Percy was saving his second sight for when it counted the most, but apparently that left him without its use as a viable option afterwards, at least for a time. 

Perceptor gave a quick nod, slowly leaning back again, although his hands remained folded together on the table in front of them. His helm remained slightly bowed. “You’re right, yes. To avoid the risk of losing what vision I can manage at the moment, I don’t want to overtax my systems. So I’m leaving—“ 

It was Dead End’s turn to interrupt. “You’re leaving yourself vulnerable!” Dead End understood the logic, the need to give systems some down time from being so over-used, but he couldn’t comprehend being comfortable with something like that. He hated feeling defenceless. 

Percy ex-vented. “While we are in MacCadam’s, we’re safe. There is no immediate threat of Quintesson engagement while we are within the borders of this building. I am taking advantage of that fact to allow my systems to cool down; I assure you, I have assessed threat potential and this is as low as it’s going to get, given our current status.” 

He wasn’t wrong. Dead End knew that. But still…

“Yeah, but while you’re in here, you’re almost totally deprived of visual input, then. Aside from whatever low-grade sensory processes you have going on, I’m not familiar with whatever custom stuff you might’ve done to your frame, but… Just ask me, okay? Ask me if you need help. You can send me a private comm if you don’t want to call yourself out in front of the others. Here’s my frequency— Wait, give me your arm panel. I’ll input it myself.” 

Dead End grabbed Percy’s wrist; The grip was light, but it startled Perceptor somewhat. “Sorry, I just, open your panel and you can call me if— when— you need me.” Dead End looked up at Percy’s face, and saw a bigger smile than the one he’d flashed earlier. Well, a big smile as far as Perceptor was concerned. Still, it was something. And it made Dead End’s spark spin a little faster, although he’d never admit it to anyone. 

The panel on Perceptor’s forearm popped open with a single small click, and Dead End to his credit only hesitated briefly before providing the code to his comms, a direct line to his internal communications system. It would be the quickest, quietest way to reach him. 

He tried to ignore how much it felt like he was back on Cybertron, giving his number to a hook up at one of the many bars in Kaon he’s stopped by in while staying overnight to catch one of Megatron’s speeches outside the gladiator ring after an event ended… That was a long time ago. Dead End didn’t want to think about that; How much time had passed. How long the war had gone on. How he didn’t know what to do with a stalemate or ceasefire called. 

How he actually really wanted this autobot to be safe, more than just for the sake of survival or teamwork. 

He closed the panel on Perceptor’s arm once he’d finished, softly popping the latch back in place into the corresponding notch inlaid on the armour. 

“Thank you. I’m sure this will be helpful to have should I need it. We can test your ability to take verbal notes; I will give you my personal comm number as well. 8906-2667-8875-0096-5331.” 

Dead End quickly recorded the sequence and registered it in his contacts. “Some warning would have been nice, but I got it all down. I take it you want to get started on these data pads before Hot Rod and Clobber bust the door down?” 

“That would be ideal, if you don’t mind.” The smile hadn’t faded from Perceptor’s face plate yet; Dead End found that he’d take as many notes as it took to keep it there.

As they got to work, they hadn’t noticed MacCadam had appeared in his usual place behind the bar, quietly cleaning some energon mugs as the taps refilled from a couple containers he’d brought up from the stock room. 

He grinned as he listened to Perceptor orate some equations to Dead End, who intently focused on a data pad, trying to keep up. He softly rotated one of the freshly cleaned mugs in his servos, rubbing it down with a rag to dry it off after taking some extra time to slow down and rinse it gently, not wanting to interrupt the hard work with the sound of glasses clinking together in the bar sink.

MacCadam loved his job, and he loved his patrons. He’d seen so many relationships begin and end in this place; So many conversations both casual and world-changing had been held in these booths.

A surge of pride filled him as he prepared four of the cleaned mugs; he got the feeling the others would be back soon enough, but for now, he was simply tending the bar, hosting customers, and things were the way they should be.

He could tell from where he was standing that this was the beginning of something good. Whether a new ally, a friendship, or something more; This was the kind of unity, the kind of connection between bots he always did his best to foster. Even with Quintessons taking over the planet, threatening to destroy it all for good… Even here and now, love found a way. 

Yes, anything is possible at MacCadam’s.


End file.
